


Waiting for the Crash

by Karis_Artemisia_Judith



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Class Differences, F/M, Forbidden Love, Metaphors, Secret Relationship, Similes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 12:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12233166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karis_Artemisia_Judith/pseuds/Karis_Artemisia_Judith
Summary: Kristoff is a chauffeur for a wealthy family, Anna is a young socialite, and their secret romance has reached a crisis point.





	Waiting for the Crash

**Author's Note:**

> for Sara!

* * *

Kristoff gripped the steering wheel, suddenly nervous.  _Take_ _me home_ , she’d said. He didn’t know what had happened, he didn’t know why she’d left the gala early or why her tears were staining the shoulder of his jacket with mascara, but when he’d turned toward the elegant mansion she’d shaken her head. “No, not there. I don’t live there anymore. Please—take me  _home_.”

They were here. He cut the engine, and Anna lifted her head from his arm.

It wasn’t much. She knew that—he’d told her, during their drives, all about the little studio apartment above the auto shop that his dad had owned. He’d told her about the work he did sometimes on his days off, fixing cars for people who didn’t mind waiting for him to have the time. He’d met her eyes as she smiled at him in the rearview mirror.

“You love it, don’t you?” she’d asked.

“I like working with my hands.” He’d blushed as her smile widened into a grin, the details of his personal life getting lost in a different kind of intimacy, one that had started haunting his every waking moment. Heated glances in the mirror, fevered kisses snatched in dark corners of the garage, her hand lingering in his as she stepped out of the car, it was all like a dream, and he expected to wake up at any moment. He was waiting for the crash.

* * *

 

He wasn’t the family’s only driver—there were four men who spent their time chauffeuring the city’s richest family from place to place, and who looked after the collection of vintage cars in between. Since the family had four members, it was natural for a routine to settle in, each of the drivers was unofficially assigned to a family member. Kristoff, the youngest driver, had been given the youngest daughter, and with her the responsibility of spend all his evenings on call while she was at society parties. His fellow drivers got to go to bed.

The first thing he ever said to her was “Good morning, miss,” as he held the car door. She paused instead of getting in, blue eyes skimming over him before she smiled up at him.

“You’re tall!” was the first thing she said to him, followed by “Are you sure this car isn’t too small for you? I can ask Dad for one of the others, I’m sure there has to be something with better leg room.”

“Don’t worry about me, miss,” he told her.

As he eased the car out into the city traffic, she leaned forward. The car was small enough that she could almost rest her chin on his shoulder. “What’s your name?”

“Kristoff, miss.”

“I’m Anna.”

“Yes, miss.”

She sighed, and he felt the disappointment brush against his ear, ruffling his hair beneath the cap. But when he glanced back at her in the rearview mirror she caught his eye and smiled. “Did you grow up in the city, Kristoff?”

* * *

 

Kristoff cursed under his breath as the light switch flicked back and forth uselessly under his fingers. He’d never replaced that damn bulb, he kept forgetting it was burned out because he was hardly ever here—

Anna’s dress rustled as she crossed the sparse room, a whispering shush like wings. The only illumination was the harsh white of the street lamp outside, slanting through the blinds, but it silhouetted her, turning the soft peach of her ballgown into shades of ethereal grey. It was like looking at a black and white movie, all soft edges and deep shadows. She sat on the edge of his bed, her skirts a glittering cloud around her in the dimness. As she turned her head the light highlighted the shape of her cheek, the arch of her neck as she leaned over—and then the bedside lamp clicked on, lighting up her face with the soft yellow of old, weary bulbs. It made Anna glow, haloed in light, the only spot of warmth and color in the darkness. It shone on the curve of her smile as she looked up at him, shone off of the tears on her cheeks.

* * *

 

“Miss—“ he’d tried to say, but she hadn’t listened. His kiss had been impulsive, as unplanned as the downpour that had sent them running for the house. They were both drenched by the time they spilled through the door, gasping and laughing, and she’d leaned into him for balance, and he’d kissed her, tasting her smile for the briefest of heartbeats before he got a grip on himself.

Her kiss was deliberate. The shopping bags he’d been carrying were tipped out on the marble floor of the foyer, the wallpaper was slick and expensive behind his back as she pressed into him, her mouth firm and demanding on his.

“Anna—“ he whispered, helplessly pulling her closer, and he felt her smile against his lips for the second time.

* * *

 

“I’m not going back,” Anna said.

“Anna—“ He sat beside her, and her fingers laced desperately, deliberately with his.

“I want to be with you. I—“ She broke off.

“What happened? Tonight?”

Her hand squeezed his. “They kept introducing me to people, pushing me to talk to people, and normally I don’t mind but I realized it was all boys. You know, the sons of people from the club, that sort of thing. And I said something teasing about it, and my parents  _looked_  at each other, and sighed, and they said some things about how it was time for me to settle down and find a nice man, and I just—I realized I already had. And I said so, and then Dad said no, not like  _that_ , we mean someone serious, someone you can marry and have a future with. And I didn’t know what to say, I was just staring at them like they were  _strangers_ , and all I wanted—all I wanted was to go home. All I wanted was you.”

* * *

 

Kristoff lay awake that night, after the first time. He wasn’t this kind of man. This wasn’t his life, sneaking around with his boss’ daughter, meeting her in the garden shed for frantic, panting kisses, having sex with her on the leather seats of a car that was worth more than five years of his salary. None of this felt real.

This wasn’t going to last. He knew it. She was sweet, as warm and golden as honey on his tongue, but he knew how the world went. Rich girl, with everything she could ever want, desperate for excitement, and here was someone new. She wouldn’t mean to, but she’d get bored. She’d move on. Or maybe they’d get caught, and he’d be fired, and she’d be sorry but only for a while. And she’d forget. And he’d try to forget.

Except that Kristoff knew in his bones that for as long as he lived the taste of Anna would linger in his mouth. The whimpers and moans that he’d muffled with his lips would echo forever in his memory, his fingertips would tingle with the knowledge of her body, the softness of her skin. She had been so soft, so yielding, and he was going to shatter against her.

He should run from this, he should have run already. But then he thought of her smile, lighting up when she caught his eye in the mirror, thought of her scooting forward to lean over the driver’s seat, her cheek resting on his shoulder for a moment.

He didn’t run.

* * *

 

They lay facing each other, their bodies curved like two parenthesis, framing the statement of their clasped hands, their whispers, their breath as it intermingled.

“I’ll have to take the car back, in the morning. And find a new job, I guess.”

“Mm. You can work here—” Her fingers curled around his, bringing his rough knuckles to her lips. “You can work with your hands. And I can get a job—I have all this education, it has to be good for something. And we can live here, and you can teach me to cook—”

“It’ll be hard, Anna. It won’t be easy.” His stomach twists as the dreamy smile slips from her lips, because this is it, this is the crash, when everything will shatter, when he wakes up and the woman in front of him, the princess in his bed that he loves so desperately, will wake up too and realize her mistake. But Anna meets his eyes, and he can see her alert intelligence, the bright cleverness that had insisted on learning how an engine worked, the determination that glows like a fire in her.

“I know. I’m not scared.”

“I am.” He reached across the warm space between them to stroke the delicate softness of her cheek. “I don’t want you to have regrets.”

* * *

 

In the backseat she kicked off her heels and tugged pins out of her hair, laughing. “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe that party went so late! It’s almost dawn! Kristoff—” she leaned forward, resting her chin on his shoulder. “Let’s go to the roof!”

The parking garage was tall, and the roof was almost always empty. He’d stopped to get coffee on the way. They stood at the rail, watching the sunrise, waxed paper cups warming the hands that weren’t curled together. His suit jacket was draped around Anna’s shoulders, covering the green lace and soft silk of her cocktail dress, but her feet were bare on the concrete. She shivered, and he let go of her hand to put an arm around her, pulling her in to snuggle against him.

“I love you,” she said.

Kristoff stared down at her, silent until she looked up at him. The wind was tangling her hair, blowing it into her eyes, and he brushed it back, seeing the uncertainty that was clouding her face, knowing he should say something. But his tongue felt like sandpaper in his mouth.

“I mean it,” Anna said. “Kristoff, I mean it. I love you.”

He cupped her face in his hands, one palm cool, one warm from the coffee cup, both of them trembling. He kissed her, not a soft brush but pressing his lips to hers firmly, deliberately, as if he was trying to leave an indelible imprint, as if he hoped she tasted the words that he couldn’t say.  

* * *

 

He watched her sleep. Anna slept with her body curled toward him, one cheek pillowed on the back of her hand. She’d kicked off her shoes and her feet peeped out from the layers of her skirt, bare and vulnerable. Tomorrow he would drive Anna to her parents’ house one last time, leave the car in their garage while she slipped up to her room to pack a few things. He would stammer when Anna’s sister came back with her and insisted on giving them a lift in the sleek black car she preferred, the tinted windows hiding Kristoff’s red face as he sat in the backseat and tried not to meet George’s eyes in the mirror.

He would carry Anna’s bags up to the apartment above the garage while she hugged her sister goodbye, and try to ignore the conflicting emotions in his stomach, twisting around each other—pain for what Anna was giving up for him, fear that she would regret it, but elation like huge bubbles, because she was here, she had picked him, she was staying—

“I love you,” he whispered, and Anna smiled in her sleep.

Tomorrow, before anything else, he would stand in front of a judge, Anna at his side wearing a crumpled gown of gauzy peach, her smile lighting up the courtroom, brighter than the yellow flowers she held.


End file.
